Microporous Layer Design to Enable Differential Pressure Operation with Thin PEMs in Water Electrolyzers

Le résumé fourni par la source

Proton-exchange membrane water electrolyzers (PEMWEs) offer many benefits to produce hydrogen at high purity, pressure and flexibility. The levelized-cost of produced hydrogen is highly contingent on operational efficiency of PEMWEs due to high shares of electricity price in determining hydrogen production cost. One of the most straightforward ways to boost PEMWE efficiency is to significantly reduce PEM thickness, therefore minimizing ohmic loss. Currently, relatively high-thickness (>125 µm) of PEMs are used in commercial water electrolyzers. Directly reducing thickness of PEMs in PEMWEs will lead to concerns of high hydrogen crossover and device failure, especially under differential pressures (30 bar). In this talk, we will demonstrate an effective strategy to enable differential pressure operation using thin PEMs (~ 50 µm) by designing microporous layers with various structures. A well-designed microporous layer can provide better support to PEM and minimize membrane creeping and catalyst layer deformation. We also intend to correlate microporous layer structural features with root causes of performance loss in thin-membrane PEMWEs under differential pressure operations. Lastly, a stable PEMWE operated at 3 A/cm 2 and 30 bar differential pressure will be demonstrated.

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